


Speak Now

by ficsandcatsandficsandcats



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23992882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficsandcatsandficsandcats/pseuds/ficsandcatsandficsandcats
Summary: Reader Request:  Reader is being forced into a marriage with someone absolutely awful, and Jaskier comes in to object and confess his feelings.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Speak Now

You were engaged when you met.

Jaskier had bedded women who had been married for ages without a second thought but when you told him you were engaged there was something different about it. He didn’t just want to bed you and then move on when it became too complicated to continue. He wanted more. And that alone was dangerous enough to keep him from pursuing you. He remained your friend, though, unwilling to cut you out of his life even as the day of your wedding approached. The months that seemed long away cut down so swiftly he felt certain he was cursed.

You tried to keep him from finding out who your fiancé was which he found odd. For once he wasn’t doing anything that would warrant staying away from a husband to be and yet you were as cautious about it as if he was bedding you nightly. And then he saw the two of you together on the steps of the church you would be wed in. He had an arm around you, his hand holding you tightly in please and you looked so miserable. He wasn’t ugly by any means (though Jaskier would spend hours picking apart any fault he could find or manufacture about him later) but he was loud and boarish and clutched you like you were a pheasant he’d bought at market instead of the woman he had chosen to spend his life with. When he confronted you about it later, telling you he’d seen you together, you’d broken down in tears and finally the full story came.

How much you hated the man you were being forced to marry. How he had all but blackmailed your father into making the alliance. How he delighted in your misery over the arrangement, your pain serving to heighten his pleasure. Jaskier held you as you wept and he couldn’t keep himself from asking why you didn’t just run away.

“Just isn’t a word in our vocabulary, Jaskier,” you’d explained, “We can’t just do this or that and there is rarely anyone thinking about what would be just. I’m the only child of a man whose gambling has forced us into this position. If I don’t do this, I don’t know what will happen to him.”

He knew that arguing would only add his voice to the many men in your life telling you what to do and how to feel so instead he just held you, saying nothing more about it until the day before your wedding.

“If you had a choice,” he’d asked, hating the way your face fell and the bitterness in your eyes as he said it, “What would you do?”

“I would leave,” you’d answered. And then, to the surprise of both of you, “I’d choose you.”

Convincing Geralt to crash a wedding had been harder than he’d expected.

“You can’t tell me that you don’t get involved in these affairs because I literally stood feet away from you as you interrupted a Queen’s attempt at forcing a marriage,” Jaskier had argued.

“That was different. It was unjust and she wanted me to kill the man for god’s sake,” Geralt retorted.

“This is unjust as well. Don’t do it for me, do it for Y/N. She’s being forced to marry a monster who will treat her worse than any of those oafs at that banquet would have treated Princess Pavetta. Should she suffer a fate such as this just because she isn’t a Princess? Does she deserve less?”

Jaskier’s words hung in the air and Geralt couldn’t deny that the bard was right. It was wrong, but there were many evils in the word and he couldn’t get involved in all of them.

“Look, come with me or not but I am going to that church tomorrow,” Jaskier said.

“You’ll be killed,” Geralt argued.

“I would rather die trying to help her than live a long and healthy life knowing she was suffering and I maybe, even just maybe, could have done something to prevent it,” Jaskier retorted and no matter how Geralt called to him he did not turn back.

The church was packed with strangers. Your family consisted of just you and your father who sat in the front row looking abashed as he watched his daughter stand at the altar with a man who had made no secret of how he intended to use her. The man’s family was not all bad, but none of them knew or cared how much your heart was racing or how you felt as if a noose was being slipped slowly around your neck, tightening with ever recited vow.

“If there is anyone who can provide reason that this man and this woman should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace,” the officiant recited. You held your breath, not sure what you were hoping for but hoping nonetheless.

Silence.

“Then by the power vested in me I now pronounce you –”

“STOP!”

The double doors to the church burst open, Jaskier standing in it, illuminated by the sun like an angel worthy of the stained glass surrounding you. He quickly ran down the aisle and behind him a larger man with two giant swords followed, walking slower, looking around the chapel watchfully.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Your fiancé asked.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz de Lettenhove,” Jaskier introduced, as politely as if they were meeting at a party, “And I have come to bring a wedding present for the bride.”

His eyes fall to you and you’re staring at him, tears in your eyes as you try and catch up with everything that’s happening.

“What is it?” your fiancé asks, as stupid as he is cruel.

“I have brought the gift of choice,” Jaskier says, addressing the answer to you.

“Jaskier, nothing has changed. Not really. I have the same worries,” you say, a tear falling down your cheek as you push away happiness for the thousandth time. He steps up to where you stand on the altar and takes your hand in his, ignoring your fiance’s protests.

“No harm will befall your father. Isn’t that right Geralt?” Jaskier asks, calling to his friend who is still eyeing the crowd with a solemn look. He looks up at the bard and gives a smile and a slight bow to you before answering.

“Y’N’s father is under the protection of The Witcher,” he says, his voice low and husky but clear and resonant through the silent church, “If anyone harms him, they answer to me.”

You look at your father who is pale and confused but finally summons the courage he regrets not having months before.

“Go, Y/N,” he says. You turn back to Jaskier, happiness beaming in his face and yours as this nightmare is broken, and then you see the dagger. The briefest glint of steel by your fiance’s hand and you can see the arc of the blow, where it will land in Jaskier’s back, and time slows.

Jaskier sees your face turn from happiness to fear and then to anger as you shove him suddenly off the dais and launch yourself at the man you were nearly forced to marry. Your quick actions knock him off guard and you are able to topple him, the dagger falling uselessly out of read as you scratch at his face like a wildcat, months of repressed anger blinding you as you rend his face. Jaskier’s arms surround you and pull you off but before he can so much as sit up there is a sword at his throat, Geralt standing over him with a smile that could freeze flames.

“Perhaps I should have made myself clearer,” he says, “If anyone harms her father, her, or my friend, I will kill them. Slowly. With great enjoyment.”

As the three of you leave the chapel and adrenaline slowly ebbs away, doubt sets in.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” Jaskier answers. You smile, squeezing the hand that holds yours, and turn to face Geralt expectantly.

“And you?” you prompt, when he does not speak, “Are you alright with this?”

“You seem resourceful and unafraid of blood. That alone makes you an improvement on some I have traveled with in the past,” Geralt answers.

“Alright. Then, here we go!” you say, finally allowing giddy relief to take over as you went your way through the village. There are many stories for years later about the wedding the witcher interrupted and the mad bride who assault her fiancé and paraded around the town with her new lover, still wearing her wedding dress. The best one, in your humble opinion, is the one Jaskier writes as you walk towards an uncertain future side by side. 


End file.
